Everyone Loves Kid Aqualad
by rebornlover
Summary: The team have to take care of a mini Aqualad after mission against Klarion goes horribly wrong.
1. Chapter 1

Kaldur was a surprisingly fussy child. Superboy stopped and examined this thought for a minute. Well, maybe that wasn't exactly accurate. He looked over at the other side of the couch where the tiny version of his friend was currently curled up, holding onto Raquel's hand as she sat on the arm of the couch. To be fair to the current version of Kaldur, without the context the rest of them had, it did fully appear that a bunch of surfacers had kidnapped him and were even now holding him away from his beloved parents.

He had been terrified when he had caught Kaldur mid-plummet on their mission and the Atlantean had begun to shrink in his arms. He clenched his fists slightly as he thought about what could have happened if one of the younger members of the team had been hit by that stupid spell. Kaldur was around 4 now, if Robin or himself had been hit, they might have ceased to exist altogether possibly; the team was still unsure about what kind of spell that kid with the devil haircut had used and what effect it might have had on someone who was physically and chronologically two different ages.

Raquel was perched on the arm of the chair trying to find something 'guppy' appropriate, flipping through the channels with a wry eye. They were all lucky she had experience baby-sitting for the ladies in her neighborhood. Beside her she could hear Kaldur sniffing slightly. He was obviously still upset from the meltdown he had had earlier when they had explained that they couldn't contact his mother yet. God, the kid had a pair of lungs on him.

She hoped Robin would be back soon. It had surprised everyone on the team when he had been the one to calm the screaming kid down, making sure everybody kept their distance and speaking calmly to the boy when his sobs had finally petered out due to exhaustion. She wondered idly to herself how he had gotten so good at handling kids. Well, it wasn't like she knew much about him (or most of the others on the team for that matter), for all she knew Bat junior spent all his free time training toddlers in acrobatics.

She still remembered when everyone had found out about Robin. He had been so small and yet so… well her thought at the time had been 'flippy' but the word she would use now was 'graceful'. He had been such a contrast to the big bad Batman, swinging gleefully after him in the news videos. And once, she remembered suddenly, perching on his shoulders as he answered some news reporter's questions like one of those little birds on the head of a big grey rhino. God, it had been years since the first of side-kicks debuted, since they helped open her eyes to the possibilities of the world.

Aqaulad had made his first appearance not long after that if she remembered correctly. They hadn't been a lot of reports about Aquaman or his apprentice on the Dakota news cycle but she was pretty sure that he had still had that stiff, formal quality to him in all the videos she'd seen. She glanced at the little boy on the couch, her hand gripped tightly in one small hand, the other curled near the gills on his neck. She wondered about that, maybe it was a common action in Atlantean children, but he seemed kind of tense. Was he was waiting for one of them to hurt him; maybe he was shielding them from the surface air?

At that moment, Artemis and Zatanna came into the room from the kitchen where they had retreated during Kaldur's earlier panic. They had taken the time to google food that was appropriate for Atlantean toddlers, feeling slightly guilty about leaving the others to deal with a panicking super strong four-year-old. Kaldur was still kind of watery around the edges as the approached, Artemis noticed that as he moved to sit up he also curled slightly into himself, making it easier to complete his roll into a ball if any of them made a move, she was sure. That, that was slightly worrying, Kaldur never talked much about his home life or his family and she had never asked but now she was beginning to wish she had. She had always assumed that Kaldur's formality was a common trait in Atlantis but now she was starting to wonder.

She put that thought out of her mind for now. Thankfully at four years old Atlantean children could eat the food from the packs that Kaldur sometimes brought to the Cave for when he felt particularly homesick. Hopefully the kid had as much of a taste for seal as his older counterpart.

She hung back as Zatanna stepped forward. She had never been particularly good with kids.

'Hey little guy, do you want something to eat? We've got some nice, fresh seal for you.'

Zatanna kept her voice calm and soothing as she stepped forward and kneeled carefully beside the couch, hoping that the sight of the tray in her lap would coax the young boy to settle down and stop sniffling. It worked, to a certain extent, Kaldur had sat up and even let go of Raquel's hand but he stared at her a bit uncomprehendingly. She wasn't sure how much English he understood. Robin had told her that his father, Calvin, was human (and American) before he headed off but she had no idea how much English they had spoken at home while he was a toddler.

'Do you understand? Seal?" she tried enunciating slowly, feeling like one of those people in the movies who acted like slowing down and talking loud were a sufficient way to bridge a language barrier.

'Can't you just use a spell or something? Make yourself speak Atlantean?" That was Superboy, his eyes still glued to the TV from his position on the floor. He had been doing his best not to tower over Kaldur since he noticed how skittish the kid was, and had placed himself below or at the kid's eye level whenever possible. She wondered if it was something he did instinctively or if the Genomes at Cadmus had thought it would be a good idea for their Superman clone to know how to deal with children.

'That's a really good idea Supes.' She took a deep breath and, placing the tray on the seat beside Kaldur, slowly stood up and raised her hands. 'Tel lla fo su kaeps dna dnatsrednu Naetnalta'

'Kaldur, can you understand me now?'

The effect of the spell was very odd. She felt as though she was still speaking in English, and the words made familiar shapes in her mouth , but then she heard her own voice speaking in Atlantean.

'I want my Mommy.'

Kaldur's voice was very soft. The Team glanced at each other, all a bit uncomfortable about their weepy charge. They also felt really guilty about lying to a small, scared child.

'Our friend from before went to get your Mommy, we promise,' or at least that was what Zatanna assumed Robin was going to do based on what he had been muttering into his communicator before he had taken off on his bike. He had been a bit better recently about talking through his plans before he carried them out but she guessed the surprise of seeing one of his oldest friends turned back into a toddler was a good enough excuse for a slight lapse.

'Here we have some seal for you to eat in the meantime, then we can take you to a nice cool pool of water.'

He stared at her for a minute his gray eyes huge on his tiny face, concentrating very hard on trying to read her. It was one of the cutest things she had ever seen. Thankfully, he seemed to believe her. Turning to the food in the container on his lap, he slowly began peeling open the clear sealant and taking small bites out of the large piece of seal meat contained within.

She caught the others tilting their heads slightly to watch. Kaldur had always found some reason to avoid eating these packs in front of them. She had assumed that it was because most of them were at least slightly weirded out by him casually eating seal of all things, but, watching his younger self tear into the seal with teeth that she had forgotten somehow were very pointy and sharp-looking, she got the impression that he might have had other concerns. It was both very cute and very disturbing, and eventually all of them had turned their attention somewhere else in the room and let him finish eating.

Luckily for the lot of them, everything that happened that day started to catch up to Kid Guppy after he had finished eating. Raquel had to use her powers to pick up the kid, who was really heavy, and she made a note to research the differences between Atlantean and Surface Human physiologies the next time she was using her mom's laptop for a homework assignment. Taking extra care with the hand like construct she used to hold the kid up, she paused at the end of the hallway.

'Hey guys?' she called back to the others. 'Where do I put him? In his room, in the pool?'

'You said you'd take me to the pool,' Guppy's eyes were nearly closed now but he was obviously still awake enough to listen to them, so she turned towards the salt water pool at the back of the Cave.

He seemed oddly at ease with the energy constructs currently supporting him. She thought, for a minute, about filing away the question to pursue with the older Kaldur later and then decided that she might as well see if this version was any more forthcoming than the usual one.

'Hey kid,' she made sure to keep her voice soft, she didn't want to wake him up if he was already more than half the way to sleep, 'You still up?'

'Hmm,' Kaldur hummed in that really annoyed way that little Rita from the apartment upstairs did when Raquel was trying to get her to get back up to brush her teeth, after she had already settled herself in her bed.

'I was just wondering why you weren't freaked out about these?' she emphasized her point by having the hands shift slightly so that some of the fingers tapped lightly across his back.

'S'like Teacher Reny,' he said sleepily his words starting to slur together. 'r Queen Mira.'

They were at the edge of the pool now and so she bent slightly to slip him into the pool. It was kind of anxiety inducing to watch him sink to the bottom of the pool. But as she watched carefully, he settled at the bottom of the pool and then turned over on his side so that he was once again curled up into a ball.

She watched him for another minute before heading back into the main room to talk to the others.


	2. Chapter 2

Kal was having a really, really confusing day. The last thing he remembered from before he had woken up in this weird cave place was showing his mother how far he had gotten with his letters. He could write out his whole name now, though Teacher Amaris had commented that his handwriting was abysmal.

Kal hadn't mentioned that to his mother though, she didn't like Teacher Amaris very much and he had a feeling that it was his fault somehow. Somehow, no matter what he was doing or how good he tried to be, Teacher Amaris was always unhappy with him. He would be very glad when he moved up to Teacher Reny's class next year, she had filled in for Teacher Amaris earlier that year when she was sick and she had been much much nicer to Kal.

Anyway, now he was stuck on the Surface world with a bunch of strangers and no idea how he had gotten there. Mother and Uncle Calvin had always told him that he should stay away from surface-worlders, as had all the adults in his life, and he was really worried that he was breaking their rules. Despite what Amira's father had told his classmate, he was not a rebevous trout1 (whatever that was) and he always, always did as he was asked. It was unfair! Now he was gonna be in trouble with his parents and his teachers and it wasn't even his fault.

The surface-worlders were fairly nice though, even if he was still pretty sure that they had kidnapped him. The one who had brown skin like his and Calvin's had held his hand as he was watching their strange communicator earlier and the other white skinned ones had given him food, and one of them had even done a spell that allowed them to talk to him in Atlantean. He hadn't known that surface-worlders could do magic like that, or (now that he thought about it) why the older boy with the dark hair and the strange dark eye mask had known how to speak Atlantean but he guessed that his teachers would probably know.

Maybe he should try to escape! They had left him all alone in the pool, and he didn't think they actually wanted to hurt him, kidnapping aside. Ronay, whose father was in the royal guard, had once told him a story where Annex Orin had escaped from kidnappers just like these. Well… maybe not just like these, the kidnappers in the story had seemed much meaner when Ronay was telling the story at break-time, but still!

Having resolved to this plan, he took a deep breath and started to rise to the surface of the pool they had placed him in to nap earlier. Glancing around sneakily, like in the stories Ronay often shared, he swam up the edge and got out trying to be as silent as possible. He crept up to the door of the pool, stilling when it whooshed open, and then creeping forward when no one else appeared in the door way. He hid behind the door frame and looked all around the hall way to make sure that the kidnappers weren't hiding anywhere to sneak up behind him and then took off at a run down the corridor, trying to remember the way the nice older girl had carried him to get here from the main room.

Through luck more than memory he ended up exactly where he had wanted to go. The main room was as empty as the rest of the complex had been since he woke. An older Kaldur would have regarded this as suspicious but, while Kal did wonder about it, the excitement of his escape attempt overrode his concerns. Looking around curiously, he spotted the large entrance to his area and decided that was his best bet at a way out. He walked up to look at the strange opening and then jumped in surprise as a wave of light passed over him.

'Designation: Aqualad. Permission to teleport is currently revoked.' A monotone woman's voice sounded from somewhere near.

As Kal looked up and blinked in confusion, the opening started to light up. He stumbled back in shock as the woman announced in the exact same tone, 'Designation: Aquaman2.'

He closed his eyes as the light got even brighter and then opened them, blinking the spots out of his eyes as a vaguely familiar voice sounded out above him.

'Ah, Kaldur'ahm, I see that the reports from the Batman was correct. Don't worry lad, we'll have you back to normal in no time!'

The spots finally clearing from his eyes, Kaldur looked with astonishment up into the pale, hairy face of Annex Orin, ruler of Atlantis.


	3. Chapter 3

Kaldur was an adorable child. Orin watched him from where he was perched in the armchair across from him, leaning so far forward in his seat that it was only his grip on the arms of the chair that kept him from tumbling to the ground. When he had first visited Kaldur'ahm's home near Shayeris, to talk to him and his parents about becoming his apprentice, his step-father Calvin had been kind enough to show him some of their albums3. There was really no comparison to seeing the boy in person though, his hair had been allowed to grow a bit longer when he was a child, the blond curls bouncing on the top of his head with the sides still shaved close. His grey eyes were even more striking as a child, surrounded by his chubby brown cheeks and set in a face that was softer and more open. He would have to see if he could get some pictures to show Mera and Sha'laina.

Thankfully the team had remembered to restrict Kaldur's access to the Zeta tubes when they had been called out earlier to provide backup to the Flash and his scion in Central City4. He could only imagine the trouble they would have had locating Kaldur again if the boy had managed to leave the Cave before he had arrived. He had been in the middle of a meeting with his advisors when Robin and Batman had arrived at the Palace, and so it had taken him longer than usual to meet with them. When he had, finally, managed to leave the meeting chambers he had been taken aback by what they had told him and rushed over with haste. He had ended up leaving the Dynamic Duo behind in his rush to the Zeta Tube located in the Scientific Facility, which had led to him sitting here, now, watching Kaldur as they waited for the two Bats and the rest of his charge's team to arrive.

Batman had informed him when he arrived that he had already contacted Doctor Fate. He was sure that good Doctor would have much to say on this subject, though under any other circumstances he would have been loath to invite the sorcerer into the home of his host's daughter. He was glad that, despite the recent events, Robin had felt able to approach the mentors with the news. He had been feeling a kind of distance from Kaldur lately, even before the incident with Savage, and that fiasco had only made it worse. He had been informed by Black Canary that his apprentice had been having issues lately but Kaldur had not seen fit to approach him. He had avoided pressing the young man, wanting to convey that he trusted in his ability to lead his own team without outside interference and busy otherwise, with the upcoming birth of his son and the attacks by his blasted half-brother. Still, perhaps he had taken on too much distance. He would have to talk to the older Kaldur once he was back to his normal form.

The king's musing was interrupted by a touch to his knee. Kaldur was now standing beside him looking slightly worried as if something has just occurred to him.

'Annex Orin,' his little voice was soft, he would never have guessed Kaldur had sounded so different before his voice broke. 'I am very happy that you came to rescue me, and Reyna- she's in my class at school and her dad's in the royal guard- told me that you beat up bad people, which I guess is why we're still here, but these people aren't so bad really, even if they did kidnap me and even though it would be completely awesome to watch you take out bad guys, please go easy on them. Especially the small one with the black hair,'

At this point, probably from a lack of breath, Kaldur's voice dropped even further in volume, 'He speaks Atlantean you know?'

The king took a minute to parse through this bevvy of information before he started to chuckle softly.

'It is very kind of you to speak on their behalf, young Kaldur'ahm, but there will be no bloodshed here today; the people here are my allies and they have been kind enough to look after you for me.'

Kaldur seemed to process this for a few minutes before he looked up at Orin in confusion. 'But I'm just a half-breed, why would you care about me?'

For a full 30 seconds, Orin's brain refused to accept this sentence. When it finally got through, however, he had jumped up from his chair and gone to knees so that he was eye level with Kaldur. 'Who has called you that, Kaldur?'

Kaldur was taken aback at the fury, barely contained, within Annex's eyes. He didn't know whether he should give the man the information he wanted. Orin sensed his hesitation, and he misunderstood the cause.

'I am not angry at you, son,' he said, taking a deep breath to calm himself. 'My father was also a human Kaldur'ahm, and I am displeased that someone would give you the impression that any of my subjects are unworthy of my protection.'

Kaldur remained silent, though he felt better for having his hopes about Annex confirmed. His mother and her husband had often tried to reassure him that despite the words of the teachers and other parents (and even some of the other students), Annex looked out for all his people. Children often doubt the words of their parents, however, when they know that their parents are trying to protect them from ugly truths. To hear these words from the mouth of Annex Orin was greatly reassuring.

Presently the King seemed to give up on getting a name from him and sighed deeply. Before he could say anything else, however, the door in the corner started to light up. In quick succession, it announced the arrival of Batman, Doctor Fate and the rest of his apprentices' compatriots. He shelved the discussion for when they had solved their current problem.

Doctor Fate approached the duo, choosing not to comment on the sight of Aquaman sitting on his knees before his charge, and cleared his throat. Glancing up at him slightly annoyed, the King took several steps back to allow him to examine the young child. The boy looked frightened at the presence of this helmet-clad stranger, however, and attempted to back away, knocking his knees against the chair behind him.

Quickly breaking from where the others were gathered, Robin approached the boy and knelt beside him. Speaking quickly in Atlantean, he reassured the boy that the sorcerer was simply here to perform a simple examination, to ensure that he had not picked up anything from the surface world before they returned him to his parents. The young boy seemed slightly sceptical at this explanation, still glancing at him with some trepidation but he nodded and allowed the older man's approach. It took only a minute's examination for the Sorcerer Supreme to ascertain what Klarion had done to the boy. It was a deceptively simple spell and he commented as much to the gathered watchers.

'The spell works by transporting the target back to the time in their life when they felt the most vulnerable,' he intoned. 'I have come across it before and the reversal spell is simple enough, however, it is still for the best that you did not have the apprentice try to solve this. The user must suit the counter-spell to the caster and she has not had much experience in this area I am sure.'

He turned back to the boy, missing Zatanna's bristling behind him (as well as the looks of disapproval on the Team's faces). Asking the boy before him to stand still, he began to raise his arms but was halted by the boy himself.

'I don't like this,' he whined softly, stretching away from the man in front of him. The king stepped forward and knelt once again before his charge.

'Listen Kaldur,' he said softly, making sure to convey with his body the seriousness of his words. 'I know that this situation has been very unnerving for you, but I give you my word as your King that no harm will come to you while you are under my care, and though what I ask of you is scary, you must trust that I only ask because it is necessary.'

The boy searched the King's eyes for a few minutes before nodding and taking a deep breath. Turning to gathered teenagers, he waved his hand nervously, as though he suspected the true nature of the ritual still. The others waved back at him or held up their thumbs in encouragement, and the Sorcerer sighed deeply and inquired whether they could recommence. The boy turned back to him, eyes narrowed but holding as still as possible for a child of that age. In a few minutes, the ritual was finished. As the young man looked down at him curiously from his place before him, the others rushed to embrace him, as though he had been missing entirely rather than just slightly smaller for a while.

Footnotes

1\. What the very rude Atlantean actually said was rebellious lout but it's been translated by two four-year-olds.

2\. I am aware that this isn't the exact way they are announced in the show but I haven't watched it in a while and I don't remember their numbers

3\. My head-canon is that Kaldur and his family spent at least part of his childhood in a house on the surface near Shayeris and that they only really moved back underwater permanently when Kaldur became the King's apprentice.

4\. I'm going to be honest with you, I actually just forgot about Wally. Sorry!


End file.
